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Thursday, March 12, 2009

Brier: Picking to win, Day 6

by Dalene Heck

CALGARY – Can you smell what the Rockies are cooking?

Oatmeal, that’s what’s cooking. Plain, boring, blah oatmeal. Which pretty much describes the curling that has gone on at the Saddledome through Draw 14.

Thank goodness for Glenn Howard and The Shot (and Russ Howard and The Swing), or there would be very little to be excited about thus far. Let's take another look at some event statistic to tell the story:

• The average points between winners and losers is still hovering around four.

• How about this for another stat: out of 54 total games, only eight have come down to last rock, and only one of those has gone an extra end.

I have high hopes for today, the final draw of the round robin. A lot of these games mean a lot of things to a lot of players battling it out for the playoffs.

While no one has seemed to be able to even test the dominance of Team Alberta (their average points over their opponents is almost five), at least we have seen some weakness in the armor of Ontario, via Quebec’s win yesterday along with close calls against Saskatchewan and the Territories.

No matter for Ontario as far as standings go – they are safe in their quest for the playoffs – but it gives a glimmer of hope to fans who are rooting for a little more drama in their Brier.

No one likes to be able to guess the ending of a movie when they are only three quarters of the way through!

And how do our Pros figure that the round robin will finish off? Click the graphic above to find out!